"Concentrate"

When I work on a painting mixing the colors on my palette is an important part of my creative process. I like to play with paint and to see how different colors interact. It’s not always about the hue or shades of color. I’m fascinated by how colors impact each other. After a painting is complete or a section is done there is always some paint left over and so I create these small sketches. I love to combine color in unusual ways and in these sketches I free myself to simply experiment. It’s win-win-win.

Karen Landrigan

I was born in the city of St. John’s on the island of Newfoundland, Canada. I grew up on the shores of a lake and learned to swim at a very young age. All of my fondest memories always include water. If I have a first love it is mathematics. My fascination with numbers and calculation led me into the engineering program at Memorial University in Newfoundland. After two years of studying engineering, I left to attend the Alberta College of Art where I studied Visual Communications. After graduating, I got a job in advertising and went on to earn my living in corporate graphic design, including developing corporate identities for some of the largest corporations in Canada. When I moved to the United States in 2007, I took several classes at the Glassell School of Art in Houston, where I currently live, and focused my studies on designing and producing handmade jewelry. As time permits, I continue to create unique handmade jewelry today. Painting is the current love of my creative life.

Artist Statement

I've dealt with a great deal of adversity over the years and even now, at times I feel as though I exist in a strange state somewhere between life and death. For me, everything changed in an instant, yet my life continues. Today, I find myself living an entirely new existence in what seems like in an entirely new universe. Encouraged to paint by a dear friend and mentor who has always admired my creative abilities, this new reality has become the backdrop for my art. My first painting, called “Soaring”, is a close-up of a figure swimming in water with her back to the viewer, taken entirely out of context, and painted in such a way that we really don't know where she's going or how she's getting there. She could be flying; she could be dying. And this is what my art as well as my existence is about–whether to fly or die. I choose to fly.

My portrait sketches represent my lighter, humorous, more whimsical and spontaneous side. I create them mainly at night after a long day of painting, having left the studio and relaxing around the house. They just make me laugh, and the reason for their being is no more complicated than that.